Memphis

Today we were very busy, beginning in Mountain View, Arkansas and ending up in Memphis, Tennessee! We had a modest breakfast at our hotel and then checked out and went to the nearby Ozark Folk Center. It was great and Jon, who wasn't all that excited about going initially, said that he was so glad that we were there.

As I mentioned yesterday, it is set up like a small village with various buildings where crafts and skills of many kinds are demonstrated by docents. We saw a blacksmith, broom maker, jeweler, quilter, weaver, potter, gunsmith and wood carver as well as hearing good mountain music and eating lunch at the Smoke House. We were there for 4 hours and had many conversations with the docents and other tourists.

We left at 2:00 and drove back roads toward Memphis. There really isn't a direct way so we chose to use what we hoped were the more scenic roads. We didn't get on a freeway until we were almost there. Thank goodness for our GPS - it has already provided a lot of help and reassurance!

When we crossed the Mississippi river, we were in Memphis and again our hotel choice was a fortunate one. We took the first exit once over the bridge and then went only about 4 blocks to the hotel. We have a great room which looks back to the river and bridge and is quite comfortable.

Our good friend Dick Yarington had suggested that we have dinner at Corky's, a barbeque place. We found that it was fairly easy to drive to from our hotel, although it was about 10 miles away. We had about a half hour wait when we got there because it was packed! They had great 50s and 60s music going, lots of hustle and bustle, a crowd mixed in both age and race. Angela was our waitress and she was wonderful, memorizing our long order and smiling the whole time. I will have a couple of pictures in this entry to give you a sense of the place. If you ever get to Memphis, do plan to eat there!

We asked Angela to review our plans for tomorrow and she heartily approved of them. I told her that I was sorry that we wouldn't get to Graceland and she suggested we drive by on our way back to the hotel. It was out of our way for sure but we decided to go anyway. She got the address for us and when we left we plugged in into our GPS and away we went. It involved two different freeways just to get there but it was fun to see the mansion all lit up, with the grounds, car etc.

Here are a few pictures from our trip thus far - please excuse the mixed up order - I'd forgotten how to load them to get them to come out the way I wanted!: from the top:

our rack of ribs (half dry, half wet) that we shared at Corky's; Jon holding up the Corky's menu; brooms and the broom makers at the Ozark Folk Center; the Folk Center sign: Tom Albright's brother David and a group photo of David, Brigit his wife, Jon and I; and finally our clean rib plate and dishes at Corky's.